Abstract
Melatonin enhances plant tolerance to various environmental stressors. Although exogenous application of melatonin has been investigated, the role of endogenous melatonin metabolism in the response of apples to drought stress and nutrient utilization remains unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of ectopically expressing the human melatonin synthase gene HIOMT on transgenic apple plants under drought stress conditions. The tolerance of transgenic apple lines that ectopically expressed HIOMT improved significantly under drought conditions. After 10 days of natural drought stress treatment, the transgenic apple plants showed higher relative water content, chlorophyll levels and Fv/Fm, and lower relative electrolyte leakage and hydrogen peroxide accumulation, than wild-type plants. The activities of peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase, as well as genes in the ascorbate-glutathione cycle, increased more in transgenic apple plants than in the wild-type. The ectopic expression of HIOMT also markedly alleviated the inhibitory effects of long-term drought stress on plant growth, photosynthetic rate and chlorophyll concentrations in apple plants. The uptake and utilization of 15N increased markedly in the transgenic lines under long-term moderate drought stress. Drought stress sharply reduced the activity of enzymes involved in nitrogen metabolism, but ectopic expression of HIOMT largely reversed that response. The expression levels of genes of nitrogen metabolism and uptake were more upregulated in transgenic apple plants than the wild-type. Overall, our study demonstrates that ectopic expression of HIOMT enhanced the tolerance of apple plants to drought stress, and transgenic apple plants showed improved growth due to higher nutrient utilization efficiency under drought conditions.
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Claims 10
Claim · model-written summary
Under natural drought, transgenic HIOMT apple plants had higher relative water content, chlorophyll levels and Fv/Fm than wild-type plants.
- Taxon
- apple
Malus domesticae0 - Material
- transgenic apple lines that ectopically expressed HIOMTe0
- Treatment
- natural drought stress treatmente1
- Outcome
- relative water content, chlorophyll levels and Fv/Fme1
- Direction
- highere1
- Comparator
- wild-type plantse1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The tolerance of transgenic apple lines that ectopically expressed HIOMT improved significantly under drought conditions”
e1“After 10 days of natural drought stress treatment, the transgenic apple plants showed higher relative water content, chlorophyll levels and Fv/Fm, and lower relative electrolyte leakage and hydrogen peroxide accumulation, than wild-type plants”
Claim · model-written summary
Under natural drought, transgenic HIOMT apple plants had lower relative electrolyte leakage and hydrogen peroxide accumulation than wild-type plants.
- Taxon
- appleMalus domesticae0
- Material
- transgenic apple lines that ectopically expressed HIOMTe0
- Treatment
- natural drought stress treatmente1
- Outcome
- relative electrolyte leakage and hydrogen peroxide accumulatione1
- Direction
- lowere1
- Comparator
- wild-type plantse1
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The tolerance of transgenic apple lines that ectopically expressed HIOMT improved significantly under drought conditions”
e1“After 10 days of natural drought stress treatment, the transgenic apple plants showed higher relative water content, chlorophyll levels and Fv/Fm, and lower relative electrolyte leakage and hydrogen peroxide accumulation, than wild-type plants”
Claim · model-written summary
Transgenic apple plants increased peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase activities more than wild-type plants.
- Taxon
- appleMalus domesticae2
- Treatment
- transgenic apple plantse2
- Outcome
- activities of peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalasee2
- Direction
- increased moree2
- Comparator
- wild-typee2
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e2“The activities of peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase, as well as genes in the ascorbate-glutathione cycle, increased more in transgenic apple plants than in the wild-type”
Claim · model-written summary
Transgenic apple plants increased expression of genes in the ascorbate-glutathione cycle more than wild-type plants.
- Taxon
- appleMalus domesticae2
- Treatment
- transgenic apple plantse2
- Outcome
- genes in the ascorbate-glutathione cyclee2
- Direction
- increased moree2
- Comparator
- wild-typee2
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e2“The activities of peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase, as well as genes in the ascorbate-glutathione cycle, increased more in transgenic apple plants than in the wild-type”
Claim · model-written summary
HIOMT expression alleviated the inhibition by long-term drought of growth, photosynthetic rate and chlorophyll concentrations in apple plants.
- Taxon
- appleMalus domesticae3
- Treatment
- long-term drought stresse3
- Outcome
- plant growth, photosynthetic rate and chlorophyll concentrationse3
- Direction
- alleviatede3
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The tolerance of transgenic apple lines that ectopically expressed HIOMT improved significantly under drought conditions”
e3“The ectopic expression of HIOMT also markedly alleviated the inhibitory effects of long-term drought stress on plant growth, photosynthetic rate and chlorophyll concentrations in apple plants”
Claim · model-written summary
Transgenic apple lines increased 15N uptake and utilization markedly under long-term moderate drought.
- Taxon
- appleMalus domesticae0
- Material
- transgenic linese4
- Treatment
- long-term moderate drought stresse4
- Outcome
- uptake and utilization of 15Ne4
- Direction
- increased markedlye4
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The tolerance of transgenic apple lines that ectopically expressed HIOMT improved significantly under drought conditions”
e4“The uptake and utilization of 15N increased markedly in the transgenic lines under long-term moderate drought stress”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought sharply reduced the activity of nitrogen metabolism enzymes in apple.
- Taxon
- appleMalus domesticae0
- Treatment
- Drought stresse5
- Outcome
- activity of enzymes involved in nitrogen metabolisme5
- Direction
- sharply reducede5
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The tolerance of transgenic apple lines that ectopically expressed HIOMT improved significantly under drought conditions”
e5“Drought stress sharply reduced the activity of enzymes involved in nitrogen metabolism, but ectopic expression of HIOMT largely reversed that response”
Claim · model-written summary
Ectopic HIOMT expression largely reversed the drought-induced reduction in nitrogen metabolism enzyme activity in apple.
- Taxon
- appleMalus domesticae0
- Treatment
- ectopic expression of HIOMTe5
- Outcome
- activity of enzymes involved in nitrogen metabolisme5
- Direction
- largely reversede5
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The tolerance of transgenic apple lines that ectopically expressed HIOMT improved significantly under drought conditions”
e5“Drought stress sharply reduced the activity of enzymes involved in nitrogen metabolism, but ectopic expression of HIOMT largely reversed that response”
Claim · model-written summary
Transgenic apple plants upregulated genes of nitrogen metabolism and uptake more than wild-type plants.
- Taxon
- appleMalus domesticae6
- Treatment
- transgenic apple plantse6
- Outcome
- genes of nitrogen metabolism and uptakee6
- Direction
- more upregulatede6
- Comparator
- the wild-typee6
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e6“The expression levels of genes of nitrogen metabolism and uptake were more upregulated in transgenic apple plants than the wild-type”
Claim · model-written summary
Transgenic apple plants showed improved growth under drought, attributed to higher nutrient utilization efficiency.
- Taxon
- appleMalus domesticae7
- Treatment
- drought conditionse7
- Outcome
- growthe7
- Direction
- improvede7
- Qualifier
- due to higher nutrient utilization efficiencye7
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e7“transgenic apple plants showed improved growth due to higher nutrient utilization efficiency under drought conditions”
The same questions in other papers
drought · physiology: photosynthesis · Malus domestica (apple)Results differ
3 papers in the same direction as this paper · 17 in the opposite direction
- negative
- no effect
- negative
17 papers more in this group
See all 21 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.